Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/311

 was barely enough to make him consent. He has not been himself lately, especially since I told him two days ago that there was absolutely no hope for his mother. He is not at all well and has taken it very hard indeed; in fact, his condition is such as to cause me serious anxiety—and he won't listen to advice."

"Hum!" said Doctor Kreelmar again. "Well, then, shall we go up?" He turned and walked back to the door, where he had left Varge standing. "Follow Doctor MacCausland," he said briefly.

"Yes," Varge said quietly, as he obeyed. It seemed as though he were present in some strange place, not actually, but sub-consciously present, and in this strange place the surroundings were strangely familiar, as if, in some other state, they had been part of his life—the pattern of the stair carpet, he remembered every one of the little zigzag lines, the little flowers on the dark-green background—that closed door at the right of the hallway, as he had entered. There was a heaviness upon him, oppressing his heart—a great weight that seemed to bear his shoulders down and deprive his steps of buoyancy, his mind of the vitality to rouse itself to the effort of analysis.

Mechanically he followed Doctor MacCausland. They reached the head of the stairs and turned along the upper hallway—and then, suddenly, the mist, the fog, the apathy was gone from him. They were standing before the door of the front-room—her room—the scene of her gentle chidings, her reproofs for childhood's waywardness—where, at her knee when bedtime came, he had learned to lisp out "Now I lay me"—where, as he grew older, she had taught him to say—"Our Father."